Hear Them Ring!: The Bells of Christmas

The "March of the Kings" from Bizet's L'Arlésienne cheek by jowl with "Good Christian Men, Rejoice," "Coventry Carol," "Ding Dong! Merrily on High," "What Child Is This?" and "In the Bleak Midwinter"—on handbells? Hark, ye of little faith, and let their wonders fall upon thine ears! The 11 players in this ensemble use 79 different Malmark bells spanning 6½ octaves.

"These virtuosi of metal and mallet positively palpitate with imagination and their arrangements are the ne plus ultra of shimmering, quivering pulsating pulchritude…. 'Twas Christmas Eve' receives a rather suggestive reading that ends in Renaissance dignity whilst the witty colouration of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' is full of pitch extremes and glittering sonorities, like stars exploding. 'Away in a Manger' is saturated in impressionistic ostinato; if you think handbells are inflexible creatures listen to the dynamic variance cultivated by these patrician East Coast ringers. They wouldn’t rouse a butterfly’s eyelids with the spectral quiescence of their Malmarks. 'A Flight of Angels' is rhythmically novel; the sound of mallet on bell is distinctive as elsewhere the piping of shepherds in 'Shepherds, Watching' is conveyed through simplicity and delicacy."—MusicWeb International